This year Kansas City's Fringe Festival brought together music, theater, dance, fashion and visual arts in 10 days of performances and exhibitions in 17 venues spread across downtown, the Crossroads Arts District and midtown.
There were performances at established theater companies like the Unicorn and the Metropolitan Ensemble Theater, as well as scrappy little spaces like the Fishtank and Vulcan Forge.
I bought a ticket for 3 performances: Hexing Hitler - a play which depicts five people gathering in a remote Maryland cabin in 1941 to kill Adolph Hitler with witchcraft. According to its creators, the play is based on a true story, Bill Murray's Cousin: In Concert - billed as a shape-shifting, psychedelic musical foray, and The Rocky & Bullwinkle Horror Picture Show - a musical "blending" of the cartoon Rocky & Bullwinkle and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
I, like 4 people before me and 2 after, walked out of Bill Murray's Cousin: In Concert. As far as I could tell it was 3 guys sitting behind a bunch of sheets clothes-pinned together, playing an out of tune guitar and attempting to sing. That's their stage set in the photo above. I now wonder if the sheets were clean.
I skipped Hexing Hitler because 2 friends saw it and said "not worth it."
I sat through Rocky & Bullwinkle which wasn't too bad. Even the director was quoted as saying, "In the spirit of Family Guy and Robot Chicken, we hope you think this show is as stupid and entertaining as we do. And we hope you find no social significance or relevance whatsoever - anything remotely resembling substance or value is purely accidental." Naturally, I didn't read that until I got the program. However, I didn't see the need for one particular stage prop which is too bizarre to include here. But you can ask me what it was if you really want to know.
Apparently I missed the really great offerings of this year's Fringe Festival...........
